Kinross County Highway Authorities

• Reference:GB 252 CC2/2
• Dates of Creation:1808-1930
• Physical Description:
  0.47 Linear Metres

• Scope and Content

  Kinross County Statute Labour Trustees minutes, 1808-1811; Trustees under Acts for making and repairing certain roads in the Counties of Perth, Kinross and Clackmannan minutes, 1823-1878; Kinross and Orwell District Statute Labour Trustees minutes, 1824-1878, and assessment book, 1858-1879; Portmoak District Statute Labour Trustees minutes, 1836-1878, and cash book, 1846-1879; Cleish District Statute Labour Trustees minutes, 1826-1851, accounts, 1825-1866, and assessment book, 1851-1879; Kinross County Road Trustees minutes, 1879-1889; Kinross County Road Board minutes, 1889-1930.

• Administrative / Biographical History

  Kinross County Council was set up under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889. Prior to that the responsibility for the maintenance of roads had been held by different bodies. The earliest statutory provisions for the maintenance of roads in Scotland from 1617 onwards imposed duties on the justices of the peace. In 1669 a further act of parliament introduced the system of forced labour (or ‘statute labour’) for roads maintenance. Justices of the peace were to require ‘all tennents and coatters [cottars] and their servants’ to work on the public roads for a fixed number of days each year.

  From 1686 the commissioners of supply were jointly responsible with the justices of the peace. Statute labour was effective, at least in some rural areas, but was naturally unpopular. To remedy the defects of personal statute labour, counties or smaller areas obtained local acts of parliament for its abolition and the appointment of bodies of ‘statute labour trustees’. The trustees would impose a local tax and spend the proceeds on road maintenance. The Road Act 1845 standardised the system and allowed it to be applied generally. Turnpike roads were roads funded by the collection of tolls at toll bars or turnpikes, as they were also known. Local landowners would obtain an act of parliament for specific roads and the trustees would be empowered to borrow money, impose tolls, maintain roads and build new ones. The first such act in Scotland was in 1713 but they did not become widespread until the 1750s. A General Turnpike Act in 1831 standardised the powers and functions of turnpike trusts.

  The Roads and Bridges (Scotland) Act 1878 abolished the remaining statute labour trusts and assessments and placed all turnpike roads, statute labour roads, highways and bridges under the control of a single county road trust, to be composed of commissioners of supply and some elected members.

  Kinross County Road Trustees were abolished in 1890 and their duties assumed by the county council acting through the County Road Board. The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929 created a new body, Perth and Kinross Joint County Council, which was to assume responsibility for the area's roads.

  County councils were abolished in 1975 and their powers transferred to regional, islands and district councils.

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